The man accused of killing four women he met over backpage.com admitted he found them dead in his home but didn’t harm them.

James C. Brown several times replied, “No sir,” when directly asked by Detroit detectives whether he injured the women who went to Brown’s Sterling Heights home after communicating with him through backpage.com, according to a video of a police interview played in court Friday.

Brown said, “When I went back to the room … I noticed it,” that a naked woman was dead in his bed, he said regarding one of the two incidents.

Advertisement

“I didn’t murder anybody,” he said later in the interview.

In the other incident, he said he passed out after smoking marijuana with two of the women and awoke to a naked dead woman in his basement bedroom.

“I laid in bed and before I knew it I passed out,” he said. “I woke up, and the girl’s on the floor.”

Prosecutors played a 3-hour video recording of the May 2, 2012, interview of Brown by Detroit Det. Derryck Thomas and Michigan State Police Sgt. Kenneth Ducker for his trial in Macomb County Circuit Court.

Brown, 25, is accused of suffocating the women in two separate incidents in December 2011 after meeting them via backpage.com.

Killed in the first incident was Renesha Landers, 24, and her cousin, Demesha Hunt, 25, whose bodies were found in Landers Chrysler 300 on Dec. 19 near Chalmers and Outer Drive in Detroit. Found dead six days later were Natasha Curtis, 29, and Vernithea McCrary, 28, whose bodies were discovered about 1 a.m. Dec. 25 in a trunk of McCrary’s Buick LaSabre, which was set on fire near Outer Drive and Hayes. Both cars were found in an area where Brown was raised before moving to Sterling Heights.

He is charged with four counts of first-degree, premeditated murder, punishable by life in prison without parole, and four counts of mutilation of a body.

A 2-hour recording of police first interview on May 1 by Thomas and Detroit police Sgt. Ernest Wilson was played Thursday for the jury.

Much of the audio for both interviews was muffled and difficult to decipher. Jurors, attorneys and law enforcement officials were provided transcripts of both interviews to read while listening.

Brown seems to believe at several points of the interview that he was only being charged with arson for burning the car and the garage it occupied.

Brown asked Thomas if he could talk to prosecutors to lobby them for probation.

Brown asked, “Will I be on the news?”

The police officers led Brown to believe that they believed the women died from an overdose from smoking marijuana. One of them asked Brown if he “laced” the marijuana with “chemicals.”

Brown said no, and later added, “I wouldn’t let them do that s--- if I knew.”

Brown during both interviews asks many questions about legal procedures.

He also asks at least twice about his mother, who was home at the time that prosecutors say the women were killed.

“Tell my mom I’m sorry,” he said.

Brown refuses to admit beyond being with the women despite many pleas from the investigators. “You can’t run from this. You got to stand up,” Thomas tells Brown.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Brown replies.

In trying to get Brown to talk more, Ducker tells him, “You just made some bad decisions.”

“I’m sorry, man,” Brown says.

The officers during the first interview told Brown they were going to “lock up” his mother for her role in the case, although that was false.

Thomas and Wilson admitted that they lied to Brown several times during the interview, which attorneys noted police are allowed to do.

But Brown’s defense attorney, Jeffrey Cojocar, said they are not allowed to promise to help the defendant, pointing out that Thomas in the first interview talks about “getting you (Brown) out of this mess.”

Wilson testified that three of the four women had placed ads on backpage.com, a classified web site that includes sections for “dating” and “adult.”

The trial, which began Feb. 6, is scheduled to continue Wednesday afternoon in front of Judge James Biernat Jr. at the Mount Clemens courthouse.

About the Author

My beat is the courts of Macomb County and general assignment.
Read more of Jameson Cook's court coverage on his blog http://courthousedish.blogspot.com/ Reach the author at jamie.cook@macombdaily.com
or follow Jameson on Twitter: @jamesoncook.